


Quiet Dreams

by belladeum



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: (haha yeah who am i kidding francis is pining so hard for nothing), (maybe? who knows~), Francis is a lil forlorn is all, Francis tries very hard not to get upset that he can't get over Arthur but fails badly, Hetalia Countries Using Human Names, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, M/M, Mythology References, Nationverse, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Wistful, i'm awful at naming fics how do you do it, this isn't ANGSTY one-sided more sort of... wistful I guess??, uhhh vague references to historical events and also maybe subtle body horror???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-12-06 23:11:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18226670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belladeum/pseuds/belladeum
Summary: Francis stroked Arthur’s cheek, pale and drawn and skin flaking from mistreatment, counted the stardust freckles with the curve of his nail as if he could brush them away. His thumb hovered upon Arthur’s bottom lip, his reddened skin and slow breaths soft and warm, inviting. They weren’t his to take, though, nor even ask for, not even after all these years of love, bitter, sour, eager and sincere and familiar as the weight they carried as nations.Arthur sleeps at his writing desk. Francis watches him, and dreams. || Reupload. Written in 2015 ||





	Quiet Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the49thname](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the49thname/gifts).



> Another slightly spruced-up and re-uploaded fic. Written as a birthday present for the amazing the49thname back in 2015 and an experiment into a different style. Featuring Francis pining and sighing a lot.  
> 

Arthur had fallen asleep at his writing desk again.

It wasn’t a regular occurrence, but nor was it so rare that it was unexpected. As usual, though, his inkpot was left unattended and in danger of spillage if he moved – although Arthur did sleep as if his bones were superglued, so there was little need to worry about that – or of drying out in the yawning sun that perfused into the room just as lazily as Francis moved about it. Of course, he did it so as not to wake Arthur, the heavens didn’t really care much either way if he woke or slept. The world would keep turning and the sun would keep shining after all – on every _other_ country, that is. He glanced out of the window and was distracted by the creeping mould on the lace curtains and windowsill. He turned his nose up at it and made a note to point it out to Arthur, and by point it out he would pester him and emphasise with just the right amount of pity and disdain how he couldn’t even take care of this dull home of his. That would make him stubborn about it for sure. Reverse psychology was the only way to get through to him. He felt absently for the other pair, the ones that fulfilled the purpose of blocking the sun, and moved them out from the brass holder attached to the wall, all drying and flaking paint where they met, possibly picked off in moments of boredom during the routine of checking all the windows before Arthur went to bed. You’d think that he'd have spotted the mould and done something about it given Arthur’s habit, but perhaps he’d become complacent with immortality. 

Francis tugged at the curtains and they budged only slightly on the rail, metal rings screeching along it in a way that made Francis wince. He made a quick check over his shoulder – Arthur was still sleeping, it seemed, so he breathed a sigh of relief. He pulled on them gently this time and their movements eased until he drew them shut.

The gloom that spread tinted the room green and cast mottled, leafy shadows upon the walls, and spilt a small stream of light and dust motes onto the ceiling-high bookcase that stretched across most of the east wall. The path cut a stripe across Arthur’s arm and through the sandy, sea-swept tufts of his hair.

The semi-darkness suited the study just as much as piercing sunlight, though Francis did find himself blinking to adjust to the new levels. Everything was a poor imitation of dusk when trapped within four walls.

Francis approached Arthur as he usually did, with an air of dignity and an unwavering determination not to get punched in the face if he disturbed him. He supposed such a fate would befall anyone foolish (or heartless) enough to wake him; his response would be as much about paranoia and the sudden presence of of someone else as it would be about it being _Francis_ \- there was a reason for him checking the windows and doors every night after all. Arthur was well and truly in slumber, though, as Francis was not as quiet as he should have been, nor as cautious, as he dusted his fingers over the bundles of hair and folded over his untidy and indecisive shirt collar. Still, Arthur did not show any signs of awareness. Francis let small paths in the air, tiny little undercurrents revealed by the weightless particles stealing fragments of sunlight, run over his fingers – sunlight had such a subtle, silken touch that was rare and underappreciated in this country – as he moved his hand over the inkpot to pull the cap towards him with the overhang of his nails. Small dots of midnight bloomed and were drawn along the grooves at the tips of his fingers. He flipped the lid into his hand and carefully screwed it back onto the small jar using the side of his finger, taking a very simple satisfaction from the chink and scour of plastic meeting glass. He examined the smudges on his skin and blew on them gently, not wanting to risk staining his clothes or any of Arthur’s possessions by accident – he didn’t feel like doing it on purpose either at the present.

Arthur’s hands were far less cared for. They showed his age more than Francis’, showed his carelessness and his years of having become learned in many subjects. His fingers were dotted and smeared with ink, on the callous of his middle finger and all along the edges of his nails. Arthur held a strange pride for them – they were robust and got the job done – but he never took the time to really _admire_ them. Francis decided, since he could do it, he would give affection to those hands like his own where Arthur would not. Francis was often captivated by the hands of others, of their subtleties and stories, their scars and their softness; they were the first thing he fell in love with in another. Arthur’s were not the first to catch his eye, and not the only ones now, either…

He bit down fantasies and focussed again on the present. He should not think of others while with Arthur. Arthur, who was open-mouthed but not yet drooling on his right arm as he’d witnessed after succumbing to the effects of one too many a _Spitfire_ – nothing like the piss Alfred called ale, Arthur would say – many a raucous night. It was a nice change of pace, the rare occasions where Arthur was asleep during the day and not reeking of alcohol, whether or not Francis was following suit, especially if he was sober and not recalling the string of slurred insults thrown his way hours before. This was much more preferable, though the stubborn Englishman would argue that since he hadn’t shouted at Francis for _something_ today then no, this situation was not adequate. He’d probably get annoyed for not waking him earlier when he saw how terrible he’d look in the mirror later. Francis was more than certain that the cross-hatch knit pattern would emblazon itself on Arthur’s face if he was left as is, and that his arm would go numb from the denseness of his skull, but there was nothing to be done about that without risking bodily harm. Not waking him may result in shouting but disturbing a slumbering dragon was not wise and if Francis was anything, it was not willing or stupid enough to risk his life on such an endeavour. Besides, it would be an interesting look for him. The jumper itself was woollen and warm and Francis knew it fit well on himself after a lazy morning and pestering a begrudging Arthur for five minutes straight to let him wear something of his lest walk around without any clothes. The colour was of royalty, and it looked very becoming on Arthur, brought back memories both good and bad for Francis but mainly it just suited him; for all his misery and stubbornness Arthur was suited to such a rich colour. At least when it draped over him a size too big and flopped over his wiry frame to force some endearing trait on him. All in all it was a nice jumper.

Francis plucked a compacted pill from Arthur’s shoulder and flicked it away into the silent caverns of the room not bothering to watch the speck disappear. He was too fixated on Arthur. And that simply wouldn’t do, for him to stare like this and long for something unattainable. To distract himself Francis tapped his nails against the desk, tiny little scutters that could barely make his ears, so quiet his own breathing was louder than them.

His nails found a groove that felt nice to follow, smooth and deep and liable to splinter but maybe Francis could use it as an excuse to get Arthur to kiss it better – oh, if only his amazingly perfect schemes didn’t always end in getting flipped off or shoved away. Such was the predictability and unfairness of life. Francis lifted his hand away and to his side, since there was no point in pursuing that course of action when the result would leave him more hurt than before, one way or another. It was a shame really. One of these days he’d manage it, and it would be sincere, not for some sort of game.

He sighed wistfully into the stale air.

He found his fingers winding idly down the sturdy legs of the desk and into the smooth etchings of the stained wood for distraction once again. They traversed the animals and insignias and he recalled them by heart.

First were the ravens, proud and haughty and cunning creatures, so very charismatic, and cut deep to better accentuate the shadows. Arthur had read him _The Raven_ one blustery December night in this very room when forked lightning shone through the rain-spattered windows and distant thunder shook the heavens while Francis sat morose and drenched to the bone by the stone housing of the fireplace. Having arrived and been bundled into the study not a minute before, he’d been captivated by the lilt of Arthur’s voice as he obliged the peculiar request to read for him whatever was written in that cloth-bound book Arthur had lying upon his writing desk; he had retrieved the book and woven its lyrical tale through the air softly, silent feathers on the ground and wings through the air, walking slowly from the desk to the ornate armchair situated opposite the grate of the fireplace. Francis recalled feeling the perch of the bird on his shoulder, pitch and lucid eyes peering down his neck and claws easing into his skin. He was not as wise as Athena.

_“Again,”_ he recalled asking, needily, as the fire spit and silence left its wake and Arthur had quirked a brow.

_“Whatever for?”_

He had not confessed through shaking breath that he longed to be spoken of the same, to have Arthur long for him so, that death itself could be solace if that were true. To imagine that he himself was dear Lenore. 

Still, after a moment’s pause in the lonely dark, Arthur had turned a page and began once more.

Francis smiled and his fingers danced to the next etching: two longswords lying blade-to-blade, one wreathed in creeping ivy, and the other with bonds of seaweed, the undulating hair and bubbling, icy breath of _The Lady of the Lake._ Little was it known that she was Guinevere herself, and oh Arthur missed her so; he confessed as such to the gleam of a blade at his throat with no intention of begging forgiveness before metal sang with a chorus of blood and rattling breath. Was it meant to mean something that his _darling Guinevere_ had also died young and been cast into a still and silent prison? Francis found it laughable. Drowning was of no consequence to the already inhuman half-dead; burning the vigorously-living very much was.

_“She did not die for you.”_

With a shiver he passed to the next: a dragonfly.

_“Faeries; ancient fae of rockpools; their kin trapped within ringed prisons of winding grasses, or dusted spores and hyphae; and the small creatures that busy themselves more with humans as wicked tricksters and their firelanterns in the fog, and the pixies who engage in harmless fun with whatever tools they wish or machinations they concoct—”_ Arthur had said, dropping the words into the conversation as he finished drying his china cup _“—have the same quicksilver wings of dragonflies, and the same bulbous eyes, if one looks close. It’s the one trait they share amongst themselves.”_

_“Oh do they?”_ Francis had mused. “ _Now that would be laughable, a sight to see. Do they spawn underwater?_ ” Francis passed over his own glass of unfinished cranberry juice with a smile. He'd flicked his hair back behind his shoulder and looked to Arthur for response.

And he could have sworn for a moment that emerald had become iridescent, and pupil and iris had fractured and compounded to consume white sclera and any semblance of humanity was lost in the span of that small grin, and Arthur placed a finger to his own cracking lips. Something awful whistled between those bared teeth.

_“It’s best not to talk in jest about such things,”_ he’d said with curling lips and crooked tongue spinning the words around Francis’ throat. The crest of a jagged and gleaming fang winked between his wicked grin. The moment had vanished as quickly as an extinguished fairy-lantern in smog.

Francis could not shake the feeling that he’d overstepped some boundary as he had been guided from the kitchen to the study, contents different to how they were now, the colour scheme a blood red and royal violet as opposed to the airiness of pastel skies and forest-dappled furnishings. His heart had clamoured and pulsed at his throat, leaving his body reeling and not entirely grounded. He did not dare check for wings.

Of course they had them, Arthur had seen it for himself. _Though they didn’t like you looking._

_“Here.”_

Arthur had sketches of them, crude charcoal and opalescent watercolour and vivid inks all scatted through the pages of a tattered notebook he hauled out from a high shelf in the study. He wrinkled his nose at the dust and climbed down the ladder to show Francis. He had these, he’d clarified loftily, because paper could not dig in heel spurs and leave you gagging.

“ _Then I shall take care not to trample fairy rings_ ,” he’d quipped, a way to alleviate his tension, but Arthur’s response had been so forthright and sincere it had knocked the breath from him.

“ _You should stay clear of them altogether, else I’ll continue to worry_. _I won’t lose you to something so easily avoided. It takes something inhuman to kill another._ ”

Francis still wasn’t sure to this day if those eyes had been real. Arthur had certainly never brought up the topic again, and Francis did not dare to.

He rubbed the tips of his fingers together and felt the sheen of his nervous sweat spread. Hadn’t noticed the quick-step of his pulse and the throbbing at his wrists. He pressed on to the next jut of carved wood.

Grapes… grapes were just grapes. They were often carved into things. It had no meaning. Unless this was some compliment to Francis’ vineyards and their produce, but he had yet to find an answer. There was no tale, no memory fond or disturbing that he could call to mind that gave clarity for this carving.

He skimmed the helical pattern weaved around the mid-point and stretched just further to his favourite etching: a compass rolling upon the crashing waves. For each face of the table the needle pointed a different way, the intention being that the desk should never be turned else the direction be rendered inaccurate. Ah, how Francis longed to feel the salt breeze on his tongue again and the taste of gunpowder and the sneer as sharp as a cutlass aimed his way, only for him,  _because_ of him, but nowadays ships were metal and ungainly, and travel was so much more convenient through the air. He had many places to be after all, and one could not be leisurely when you had the minister-of-foreign-affairs-and-talking-too-much breathing down your neck.

He didn’t want to crouch down to feel along the rest although he knew what they were – the lion and the unicorn, a whisper of Gaelic that Arthur had never translated for him and he kept forgetting to ask Alistair about, and a crest from some county that Francis couldn’t care to place. He straightened up with a reluctant yet relieving round of clicks in his vertebrae.

Arthur had carved some of them himself with a small knife and a lot of free time, but Berwald had helped. Simple favours and a “ _s’no problem_ ” and “ _I want to do it f’r you…_ ” Francis had heard from Finnish through Italian via Chinese whispers that did not even associate themselves with Yao. Even _he_ hadn’t found the time to court Berwald yet, so he endlessly wondered what he could have ever seen in a fool and a thorn-in-his-side like Arthur, no matter how briefly. He thought this, but it didn’t do much to alleviate his own foolish pressing desires. Oh hypocrite. What could he say?

Arthur breathed in sharply and Francis blinked out of his reverie and looked down to him. Arthur’s eyes were still shut and his jaw slack. His breath whistled out of him in small bursts and he inspired with a stressed sort of sound, in a way hoarse and thick but in a way thin.

Francis pursed his lips. Perhaps it really would be a good idea to mention the mould to him; perhaps it was making his asthma worse. Not that spending years around asbestos in council housing after this home of his had been rendered ash, burnt brickwork, splintered wood and crumbled mortar only decades ago had helped at all. Constrictions and inflammations of the throat had always troubled Arthur, and it gave rise to the question of their nature, of their humanity. Why should he carry such a trait continuously, more so than any other of their kin whose biology twisted to the trends of the masses? Perhaps that meant Arthur was just Arthur. Perhaps that meant his distaste for Francis had naught to do with history and bile and impressions of a hivemind consciousness.

Francis sighed softly.

He brushed a finger through disorderly hair that fell in clumps of golden wheat to stray strands and roots of umber. Arthur had inherited his mother’s hair but soon outgrew the childish fire, such a mortal colour, to a more heavenly golden sun. He supposed it compensated for the lack he experienced on his pale skin.

His fingers wandered as they did - as he could not stop them from doing - through the dry locks and over the shell of his ear, warm to the touch, where he tucked away the strands that were too disorderly to participate in that so-called ‘fringe’ of Arthur’s. He trailed the soft and hidden patches behind his ears that sunburnt oh so easily down to the back of his neck, where the brushy ends of his hair tapered out to a small line along the bony vertebrae, jutting out of his flesh proud as anything. Arthur twitched then, and Francis retracted his fingers with a spasm.

The soft rumble that passed through Arthur brought a smile to Francis’ lips, and he toyed with the idea of chuckling, or of running his fingers over his nape again to draw forth that irritated sound before dispelling it as foolish. He was relieved not to wake him though. Arthur would not appreciate being roused by him by any means, and he had doubted this for many years so Francis thought it best not to break old, functioning habits. His thoughts and whims were a-clutter today it seemed. Besides, Arthur was rather cute like this. It truly _was_ rare enough they were in the same room without arguing, and while they jested and bested each other and poked fun all in good faith, there was a certain satisfaction in the peace. Watching Arthur sleep made Francis feel at ease, but it also made him feel his age. Made Arthur look his age, too.

Francis hadn’t noticed the sagging of his knees, the outstretch of his hand once more, as he gazed at the crinkles around Arthur’s eyes, the flutter beneath his eyelids as he was swept away in some dream, and the parting of his mouth as he slept soundly. He was crouched not even a foot away, blocking out the sun, and the room felt small around them. Snug.

He stroked Arthur’s cheek, pale and drawn and skin flaking from mistreatment, counted the stardust freckles with the curve of his nail as if he could brush them away. His thumb hovered upon Arthur’s bottom lip, his reddened skin and slow breaths soft and warm, inviting. They weren’t his to take, though, nor even ask for, not even after all these years of love, bitter, sour, eager and sincere and familiar as the weight they carried as nations.

The dimples were something of his parentage he’d retained, something like his asthma that never seemed to change, and Francis wouldn’t want to change this trait. Partly because it always made it a little difficult to take Arthur seriously nowadays so he could always win any verbal fight by using this endearing quality to his advantage, but also because it _was_ endearing, and it made Arthur all the cuter, all the more wanted. His finger rested perfectly at the corner of Arthur’s mouth. Arthur twitched. Francis blinked and his breath jammed and crumpled like paper, more audible than he’d wanted, so he lifted his fingers away from Arthur’s blemished skin to hover just in the range of his exhalations, still slow. After a few moments he felt calm again, felt his shoulders sag and his vision brighten but kept his breath withheld in case it wasn’t enough. _This_ wasn’t enough.

Francis hadn’t ever kissed those tiny dimples.

“Francis,” Arthur breathed. His eyes fluttered but did not open, and Francis moved his hand slowly to shift his fringe out of his eyes. It needed a cut.

“Yes?” he whispered. He did not know when Arthur had woken, but he mercifully didn’t seem to be in the mood for picking a fight.

“I’m rather tired.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Francis said with a wry smile. He prayed Lady Luck would hold him in her favour and keep their exchange as civil and quiet as it was now, or at least give him the upper hand if he had to run from Arthur’s wrath. His temper was notoriously quick to rile up.

Arthur twitched his nose – Francis presumed he’d just given up on scowling _properly_ – and mumbled into his arm.

“Git. Want to sleep.”

“Then why don’t I carry you to bed?”

Arthur whined in sleepy protest as Francis rubbed his shoulder, and so he lifted his hand away. Not quite burnt.

“But m’comfy…”

Francis chuckled and petted his hair. “Wait here then.”

He knew the house, so it wasn’t hard to navigate, but what Francis didn’t know was the _home_. The subtleties, the experience of living here and the rooms being lived in, the small dwellings and hidden nooks and crannies and favoured windowsills for catching morning sun and which ugly rugs were hiding tea stains or the rampage of unsupervised dogs. Francis had paraded Arthur through his homes scattered throughout France; his manor houses, his cottages by the sea, by the Alps, and the vineyards, and the bungalow in Corsica. He’d spent nights and days and absent moments together with Arthur there, and yet he’d rarely spent more than the odd casual evening in any of Arthur’s houses, drunken and not-so-drunken-but-never-admitted-to escapades not included. Dover was his and Calais was Arthur’s, but other than that he had no home here.

Francis paused mid-stride with a hand on the tartan blanket he’d just dragged down from the eight-legged clutches of a money spider taking up residence on the top shelf of Arthur’s “warm coverings” storage cupboard. He hated how the smell of dust and remnant of non-biological washing powder in his arms could make him dwell on just how little a part of Arthur’s private personal life he felt. Of course there was private and there was _private_ , and yet Francis knew only of Arthur’s moments of weakness – not through his own desires, not now at least – never of his habits and his moments of solitude. He was only here now because of a misunderstanding. He wasn’t a part of that. Perhaps he was simply fooling himself in thinking that Arthur was part of his.

Never mind lovers, he was The Fool indeed, with only motes of dust and absent adorations in his head. Youth had long since escaped him, and took his wit and logic with it. At least he still had some semblance of cunning, although the façade was slowly slipping. How much longer until he forgot how to lie and make it sound convincing, he wondered?

Francis curled his fingers into the scratchy material and bundled it under one arm so he could wipe his face. Enough of this. The corridor was not designed for musing or falling into nostalgia or morose contemplation, it was a way to get where you wanted, and where he wanted was to be beside Arthur. Francis dragged his feet away slowly from that spot, fearing the repercussions of quicksand in his daze before he felt confident enough to stride forth. Arthur couldn’t sleep comfortably without a blanket after all, and he was waiting.

Francis cleared his throat outside the study door and called into the small gap he’d left, a glimpse into that secret little world of his.

“Arthur.”

He knocked and entered after a moment of silence exuding from the dim room. It felt like a different place, and Francis felt more alienated than before. His walk faltered again to a slow amble as he tried to recollect himself. Something in the air, no doubt.

The room seemed more hostile now, since Arthur was awake to judge him. Awake and pulling a very convincing act of unawareness, still slumped over his writing desk, the ink pot carefully placed to one side to prevent any accidents. Francis still couldn’t see any manuscript or journal of any kind that could be associated with it, but then again Arthur would never let him see something like that. He called his name again with no response. Francis sighed to himself and unfolded the blanket, letting the coarse material flop to the floor before draping it over Arthur.

“You’re such a hassle,” he muttered and tucked it under his arm. The man started. Oh. Had he really been asleep? _How cute._

“Sorry I took so long,” Francis said. Arthur looked to him before frowning and shrugging the blanket more comfortably around his shoulders. It was warm and just as he remembered, and Francis didn’t understand how Arthur could bear such an itchy thing. Nostalgia, he supposed, was the only logical explanation. He wondered if Arthur or his brother had made it.

“Are you sure this is wise for your back?”

“Rich coming from you,” Arthur breathed, eyes closed. “And before you ask, no, I don’t want any of that leaf water you call tea. I’ll make it myself if I want any.”

Francis chuckled. “Of course.” He knew him so well. It was almost rather unfair. “Well then I’d best leave you to your crooked neck.” Francis was sure he could hear the shuffle of wool behind him as a middle finger was lazily tossed his way, ineffective against a turned back, as he made for the exit. The room was driving him mad.

The doorframe provided space to breathe, to clutch as he gasped into the empty corridor. Francis took the brass handle and pulled without looking back.

“Goodnight, my darling,” he whispered by the door.

And from the silence of the room and behind the creak of mistreated hinges was Arthur’s mumbled reply of “ _No_.”

And Francis couldn’t help but wonder, with equal parts hope and unease, just as Arthur had intended, whether he objected to the use of “darling” or whether he was not _his_.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally meant to be “arthur is asleep at his desk so francis puts a blanket around him” but turned into “francis pining after a nonexistent semi weird relationship and references to creepy fae arthur maybe”. 
> 
> I realised after I'd finished reading through it (bear in mind this is the first time I've looked at it in years) that this was essentially the precursor to my recent Star Wars fic "Retrograde" in style and plot, right down to the last line. Guess I love this kind of dynamic.


End file.
